of original design, and most
undoubtedly erected by true architects and sculptors. They are
Saracenic, not quite up to the examples we find in Spain and in Sicily,
and in a modified and debased form in Morocco and elsewhere on the coast
of Barbary. The inscriptions from the Koran are most elaborately and
beautifully cut, and still in excellent preservation. The Moslem
peasantry would not touch them, and the Christian rayahs are afraid to
do so. There are, of course, no figures of men, or even of animals, but
the charmingly correct arches and doorways, and the delicate tracery
above them intermingled with Arabic characters, give a lightness to the
portals which is hardly to be found anywhere east of the Alhambra or the
Sevillian Alcazar.

But I must leave the ruins, for by this time the sun was sinking, giving
the plain on which so many important events had occurred a more weird
and deserted look than ever. The _cavass_ in charge of the servants was
beginning to be fussy, in fear that while we were dawdling about the one
train might come and go, and the _sitts_ and _effendis_ be left to the
limited accommodations of Aiasulouk for the night. So we filed down to
the station, the servants preceding us with the hampers upon their
heads, and the Armenian lady stepping out after them fresh and
fair--indeed, much fresher than most of us, who were rather tired after
the unusual exertions of the day.

As we retraced our morning's track we saw the same black tents of the
Yourouks and Bedawee, the smoke from the fires of which mingled with the
evening exhalations from the valley. Hundreds of sheep, horses and
camels were now gathering close about the tents which had seemed so
entirely deserted as we passed in the morning. There was no other moving
thing to be seen as we rode north and the evening closed in--no lights
in peasants' houses or fires on their hearths, for the Levantines are
"early to bed and early to rise;" in addition to which custom they have,
under the present paternal rule, acquired the habit of remaining as much
out of sight as possible.

When we came into the station at Smyrna the night had fallen. A few
flickering lamps and lanterns made the darkness visible, and except the
porters and necessary officials there was not a soul there, Turk or
Frank, to take the slightest interest in our movements. The place was
perfectly deserted and dismal. At last we saw lights approaching, and
another cavass (belonging to ou